rwandering.net

There has been much snarkiness in the blogosphere of late. Much has been written about the snarkiness. Much has been written about what has been written about the snarkiness.

What I think is missing from this discussion is an underlying framework to measure snarkiness. Doc Searls had the idea of a snarkiness slider; however, how will Technorati and others determine the level of snark?
To this end, I want to introduce the HyperText Snarkup Language (HTSL) which will initially be described as simply an extension of XHTML with a namespace. This will allow publishers to have full control over their snark.

First, an example:

<html . . . xmlns:snarkup='http://xmlns.hypersnark.org/snarkup/1.0/'>
<snarkup:snark target="http://example.org"
level="high"
tone="unhinged"
subtext="threatened" >
This guy is an idiot! He doesn't know ASP.NET from a hole in the ground.
I'm a real developer! A technologist! An inventor!
</snarkup:snark>
</html>

The snark tag
Allows the user to enclose snark text in tags to better identify the target of the snarkiness as well as the level, tone, and subtext.

target allows the author to target a specific individual without a direct link. href is really a place holder for identity — I’ll wait to see how Identity 2.0 gets fleshed out.level defaults to medium. tone defaults to even. subtext defaults to none.

The jumpthesnark tag

<snarkup:jumpthesnark href='href'/>

Allows the author to identify someone else’s post as going a step to far. Using this tag with no href (i.e., <snarkup:jumpthesnark/>) allows a publisher to self-identify this state.

Conclusion and a call for comment
It is my hope that HTSL will enable a host of new services. Like Snarkorati and Snarkorandum, and of course establishing the all important SnarkRank.

Feedback is welcome; I’m sure that the snark tags could use some enhancement.

<snarkup:snark target="www.scripting.com" level="low" tone="ironic" subtext="veiledsuckup">If we can get adoption on this then we’ll be able to confirm Dave Winer’s claim that Nick Carr has the highest snark-to-information ratio.</snarkup:snark>

Good point — I agree that a microformat could help (maybe Marc Canter can help me on this); however, I prefer to emulate Dave Winer (with RSS) and the AttentionTrust (with their principles) and just make it a workable standard

From Expert Texture (read all about it), a proposal for a new tag at the center of a new language: <snarkup:snark target=’href’ level=”low|medium|high” tone=”even|sarcastic|abrasive|ironic|unhinged” subtext=”none|veiledsuckup|allingoodfun|thr…

[…] Anyone who spent time in the blogosphere knows how snarky posts can get. The anonymity of the net breeds a kind of freedom of expression that is too often free of couth as well. So what do suppose is to be done about the snarkification of our internet communications? Write new laws? Impose a Snark Tax? Use real napalm in flame mail? Mr. Robert W. Anderson thinks he has the answer. In his blog, Expert Texture, he proposes the adoption of the HyperText Snarkup Language (HTSL). I wonder if Mr. Anderson ever met Agent Smith. Like the machines in The Matrix, the goal seems to be one of control. If you can’t remove snarkiness from the blogosphere, his answer is to at least have it well marked. His proposal seems serious as he fully enumerates the language and suggests that an entire new set of services could be created including Snarkorati and Snarkorandum. SnarkRank anyone? […]

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